“While I don’t agree with Supervisor Stone’s delivery of his questions, he’s on point on some of this,” Jeffries said. “What is the rationale that the county of Riverside has to subsidize this private profit-making exercise? Why is it our responsibility to fix this gentleman’s permitted operation that gives off an odor that the nearby residents moved next to that they don’t like?”

Kernkamp said there is a risk that California Bio-Mass will walk away from the site before its scheduled closing at the end of 2014 -- when a permit for the operation expires -- and leave the mess for the county to clean up.

"If we don't move on this today there is an extremely high likelihood that we will inherit this problem," Benoit said.

Still, supervisors wanted more answers before moving forward with the plan.

Under the plan, a total of 54,000 tons of waste would be hauled away from the compost-business site. Kernkamp estimated that 22,000 tons of material would be buried at Oasis Landfill and an additional 32,000 tons of material would be used to cover newly buried waste there, at the end of each day. He said the county would waive fees of $10 a ton for the cover material and $15 a ton for the waste that is buried.

Kernkamp said the county would more than make up lost potential revenue, by increasing the efficiency of Oasis landfill and extending the life of Lamb Canyon -- a contention that some supervisors were skeptical of. And Kernkamp said the county isn't transferring the odor problem from one community to another because “there’s no development around Oasis. It’s very remote.”

Stone remains opposed.

“I believe that we should not be coming to the aid of a for-profit company,” he said. “They chose to accept grease thinking that they could mix it with compost, and thinking that they could sell it. It didn’t work. I still don’t understand why his problem becomes our problem at this point in time.”